Update: Had my first appointment with Dr. Shippen. A good man and a real doctor.

Update: Had my first appointment with Dr. Shippen. A good man and a real doctor.

I posted this in one of the threads here, but thought it perhaps should be on it's own thread, so here we go:

Visit went well--a very pleasant and well informed man who much appreciated my detailed history. The more you give him and the more accurate it is, the better a job he can do. I got a slight impression that he'd prefer his patients not do a thorough dissection of his work on the net, so I'll abide by his apparent wishes and hit the high points, which he didn't seem to have a problem with. One of the main reasons is that "whenever one patient reads about another patient getting something they all want it!". Yeah, I was guilty of that myself.......

He was not too concerned with my low shbg of 10 and thought thay my 8-9 yr old use of Propecia could be a factor, with the use of paxil/wellbutrin a final straw, so to speak. Nobody can say if they were prescribed for what I now realize was low T or if they caused it. My gut tells me that low T was the reason they were prescribed and made a declining situation worse. Propecia, a/k/a finistaride, is a known cause of problems in some.

He does not in any way treat merely to get a number, but indicates that treatment is highly dependent on the individual. It was good to see a man actually practice medicine and not be beholden to drug companies or long outdated dogma. He tries to juggle and weave together a variety of disciplines from endo to uro to simple GP issues. Most traditional doctors only look at a small part of the problem. He takes a whole approach and tries tio figutre out how everything interacts. He earns his respect and then some.

Here is what we are trying; hcg 3x/wk with blood in another month. That's it so far, which is OK by me. We're going to start slow and build upon whatever results appear. He also suggested a neurotransmitter work up (this is new to me....) to see what's up there. Insulin resistance is a "possible" factor, but less so due to my regular exercise. Can't say what came first, low T or insulin issues. Gotta break the cycle somehow and hopefully hcg is the ticket. I have put my faith and trust in this man--which I believe will pan out well. My biggest issue is what we'll do with he retires as he's got to be in his mid-late 50s or so.

Now, all I gotta do is get used to injecting myself, all the while I wonder if the hcg will work and if so, how long before I see results. I've had 3 so far and don't feel any different, even though I intellectually understand that results may take considerably longer to manifest.